As a boy growing up in post-depression Mississippi, Carl Kirland worked in his family’s garden.

It wasn’t an option.
“Our folks told us if we wanted to eat we had to work,” Kirkland said of his brothers and sisters. “I told myself then, ‘When I get old enough to be on my own, I’m not working in no garden.’”
His forced gardening continued until like many young men of the era, he was shipped off to war.
When he returned, guess where he found himself.
Yep.
“Same thing kind of held true,” said Kirkland. “If I wanted to eat, I had to work.”
For complete story, pick up the Gazette in newsstands now